Alcatel One Touch Hero review: Compare notes

Compare notes

GSMArena team,
17 January 2014.

Alcatel One Touch Hero 360-degree spin

The Alcatel One Touch Hero measures 158.5 x 80.6 x 8.5 mm, which is 7mm taller than a Galaxy Note 3, at nearly the same width and thickness. What you get is an extra 0.3" of screen diagonal. Compared to other 6-inchers, it's smaller in all dimensions than a Lumia 1520, for example.

While the One Touch Hero isn't a small device, the slim bezels keep it usable (if not entirely comfortable) with one hand. At just under 180g of weight, it's not unpleasant to hold for longer periods either.

Design and handling

Alcatel went very minimal with the design of the One Touch Hero. Its front is not too different from the Nexus 5, while the back is vaguely reminiscent of the HTC One X. With very few design accents, similarities are unavoidable and this should be taken as a compliment rather than a dig at the Hero.

The One Touch Hero has thin bezels and is put together quite well

The large screen dictates the size and shape of the device, and Alcatel did a fine with the bezels. The bottom obviously had to accommodate the capacitive controls but other than that Alcatel did a bang-up job.

The back is made of a soft textured plastic not unlike the polycarbonate we've seen from Nokia and HTC. It's pleasant to the touch and hides fingerprints well, though it's hard to clean ones it gets smudgy.

It's not a unibody design, the back is clearly a separate panel yet it fits so tightly that it might as well be.

The rounded corners and beveled edges make it comfortable to hold in hand with no sharp corners digging into your palm. The weight of 177.6g is actually low for a 6" device, making the Hero easy to handle (unless you have small hands that is, but then you probably aren't looking at phablets anyway).

Alcatel One Touch Hero in the hand

A feature to note at the back is the row of pogo pins - those are for accessories, which use magnets to snap in place. We'll get back to those in a minute.

Display

The Alcatel One Touch Hero features a 6" IPS LCD screen of 1080p resolution, for a pixel density of 376ppi. It features oleophobic coating but there's no mention of the type of protection glass used other than it's laminated.

6" IPS LCD with 1080p resolution

The screen is sharp and with very good viewing angles (minor contrast shift at extreme angles). The colors are not the punchiest we've seen, but many people rail against the oversaturated look of AMOLEDs so this might be more to your taste.

Alcatel One Touch Hero display matrix under a microscope

More importantly, the brightness is above average but not as high as other LCD-based phablets we've played with. The black levels are nothing to write home about, which lowers the contrast. The relatively low reflectivity of the laminated glass does help outdoor legibility though, which virtually as good as it was on the Galaxy Note II or an iPhone 5s.

Display test

50% brightness

100% brightness

Black, cd/m2

White, cd/m2

Contrast ratio

Black, cd/m2

White, cd/m2

Contrast ratio

Oppo N1

0.25

285

1118

0.47

553

1164

HTC One Max

0.14

224

1591

0.40

629

1572

Alcatel One Touch Hero

0.22

230

1056

0.51

497

975

Samsung Galaxy Note 3

0

149

∞

0

379

∞

Sony Xperia Z1

-

-

-

0.38

580

1513

Nokia Lumia 1520

0.22

263

1174

0.43

522

1207

Nokia Lumia 1020

0

172

∞

0

398

∞

Sony Xperia Z Ultra

-

-

-

0.47

467

1001

Huawei Ascend Mate

0.23

222

982

0.67

711

1053

Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3

0.12

160

1364

0.32

440

1379

Samsung I9505 Galaxy S4

0

201

∞

0

404

∞

HTC Butterfly S

0.15

165

1117

0.43

451

1044

Sunlight contrast ratio

Nokia 808 PureView4.698

Apple iPhone 53.997

Samsung Galaxy Note 33.997

Samsung I9300 Galaxy S III3.419

Nokia Lumia 9253.402

Samsung I9505 Galaxy S43.352

Samsung Omnia W3.301

Samsung Galaxy S3.155

Samsung Galaxy S4 mini3.127

Samsung Galaxy S4 zoom3.118

Nokia N93.069

Samsung Galaxy Note2.970

Sony Xperia Z12.950

HTC One S2.901

BlackBerry Q102.856

Samsung Galaxy S II2.832

Samsung Galaxy S II Plus2.801

BlackBerry Z302.790

Huawei Ascend P12.655

Sony Xperia ZR2.672

Nokia Lumia 9002.562

HTC One Max2.537

Nokia Lumia 7202.512

HTC One2.504

Sony Xperia Z2.462

Samsung Galaxy S III mini2.422

Motorola RAZR i2.366

Samsung Galaxy Note II2.307

Alcatel One Touch Hero2.272

Apple iPhone 4S2.269

HTC Desire 600 dual sim2.262

LG Nexus 52.228

HTC One X2.158

Nokia N82.144

Oppo Find 52.088

BlackBerry Z102.051

Apple iPhone 42.016

HTC One mini2.003

LG G21.976

Sony Ericsson Xperia ray1.955

Samsung Galaxy Camera1.938

HTC Butterfly1.873

Huawei Ascend P61.865

Nokia Lumia 15201.813

Sony Xperia V1.792

Sony Xperia U1.758

Meizu MX31.754

LG Optimus 4X HD1.691

HTC One V1.685

BlackBerry Q51.682

LG Optimus Vu1.680

LG Optimus GJ1.666

HTC Desire V1.646

Sony Xperia Z Ultra1.578

Samsung Galaxy Core1.563

LG Optimus G Pro1.552

LG Optimus 3D1.542

Nokia Asha 3021.537

Sony Xperia M1.473

Oppo N11.470

Nokia Lumia 6101.432

Gigabyte GSmart G13551.361

HTC Desire C1.300

Nokia Asha 5011.270

LG Optimus L71.269

LG Optimus L91.227

Meizu MX1.221

Sony Xperia E dual1.203

Samsung Galaxy Pocket1.180

Sony Xperia tipo1.166

Samsung Galaxy mini 21.114

The capacitive touch sensor can detect 5 touch points (screens commonly go up to 10, not that there's a practical difference). It's sensitive enough to detect even light touches with fingers, but it could have been a bit more receptive to the stylus.

Another negative we noticed is that the lower half of the screen exhibits some light bleed - that is the very edge of the screen is light stronger than the middle of the screen. It's barely noticeable most of the time, but you see it more often once you know it's there.